Send historic holiday cheer with these historic Christmas cards from Mabry-Hazen House.

At Mabry-Hazen House, three generations of Mabrys and Hazens experienced nearly 130 years of Christmases, celebrating yule spirit and taking part in the traditions that have become such an integral part of the holiday today. Each year, the Mabry-Hazen family received scores of cards from friends, relatives, and acquaintances and we now preserve over 200 of those Christmas cards in our archives. With these Christmas artifacts, Mabry-Hazen House would like to start its own Christmas tradition by annually reprinting a set of cards from the collection.

Among the most enduring aspects of Christmas traditions hailing from the Victoria era were Christmas cards. Hand-made cards with goodwill verses and holiday cheer have been exchanged by hand or by post for centuries, but the first “Christmas card” was published in England in 1843. By 1880, Christmas cards were hugely popular, creating a lucrative industry. “Why four years ago a Christmas card was a rare thing,” a postal worker complained in 1882, “the public then got the mania and the business seems to get larger every year.” By the twentieth century, Christmas cards were integral part of celebrating yule spirit.

The images above are of the original cards. Slight differences between reproductions and originals may occur due to printing process.